I Won't Be Him
by Katharos
Summary: While in the med bay after his fight with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker broods and remembers


Disclaimer: None of this is mine, it all belongs to Lucas

Timeline: Just before the final scene of the Empire Strikes Back

I Won't Be Him.

I'm alone now.

Alone, except for the faint sounds of the 21B droid that is always on duty.

Alone, except for my thoughts...and memories.

I was a fool, a fool to think I was ready, to think I could face him and win, to make that blithe promise to my Masters, that I'd return. And yet, and yet there is a tiny voice whispering to me from the depths of my mind; a voice which, when I listen to it never fails to give me good advice; and when I go against it, I usually fall. Hard. It's grown stronger lately, louder, more difficult to ignore. It's become easier to trust it. But now... now, how can I trust it? Because what it's telling me is that... this is 'right.' That all this... is meant to be happening.

And that what HE told me... was true. It wasn't whispering then. It was screaming. And though I was trying to deny it, though all through that pain filled, drug hazed journey on the Falcon I was screaming denials at myself, my heart, and that little voice, was telling me it was true. And I had accepted it. Even before we had made the jump to Hyperspace, I had accepted it. He had called to me, his presence suddenly vividly clear to me in the Force and I had answered him. I had called him 'Father.' And with that simple word, a piece of my soul had died. The part of it reserved for the Brave Pilot, the Courageous Jedi Knight, everything I had ever thought my Father was, had been torn away from me.

Since Ben's words in his simple hut on Tatooine, those had been to staple, unchanging forces in my life. No matter what happened, what changed with Leia, Han, the entire Alliance and my Rogue Squadron, that was always the same. My desire to 'be' my Father, to become someone that that great man could have been proud of, and my hatred for his murderer, Darth Vader, the Emperor's right-hand man. Now, suddenly, they were the same. They were the same! 

I could feel a hysterical laugh threatening to spill out of my mouth and forced it down.

They were the same, and I was so confused! Vader, my father, had taken so much more from me then my hand. He had stripped away everything I had with a few words, left me floundering, helpless, without any firm point to cling to, my purpose cut out from under my feet. Then, he had offered me a new one. Join him. Join him; throw down the Emperor, rule the Galaxy as Father and Son. And, Force help me, I was tempted. For one split second I saw it, me, with my Father, powers I could only dream of at my fingertips. The Emperor, the evil being responsible for so much suffering, dead at our feet... Then it was gone. Gone, and Force I was glad, though a treacherous part of me wished for it back. I chose death then, death over what he offered me and I cannot regret that choice. I truly wished to die then, longed for the silence and peace of death more then I wanted to continue living.

Luck- or the Force- saved me. And, clinging to that weathervane, the only thing preventing me from falling to be crushed by the turbulent atmosphere of the gas giant Bespin, I found I did want to live. I was more open, I think, to the Force in that moment then I have ever been before. And it guided me to call out to Leia, to know she would here me.

I remember falling from the vane, not able to hold on a moment longer even if help had not arrived. And seeing Leia in the corridor, clinging to her like the lifeline she was. She saved me, then. Taught me that Vader hadn't taken everything from me. I still had her. I didn't realise it until later. Then, my Father's dark presence looming so close... I was sunk in despair.

I stare up at the ceiling tiles above me. I can just make out their outlines in the dim light. I've been in many med bays in the three years I've been in the Alliance, I seem to have a knack for getting wounded. This time, though, my wound couldn't be healed by a simple swim in the bacta tank. Neither of them could.

My hand- or where my hand was- throbs unceasingly underneath the painkillers, banishing all possibility of sleep. They had offered me sleep pills, but I refused. I daren't sleep. I'm afraid I'll dream. Sleeping pills always increase the possibility of nightmares. I have to choke down another laugh. Who would ever have thought that a simple farm boy would someday know, from experience, that sleeping pills increase the possibilities of nightmares? Well, Ben, for one.

I swallow. Ben. That thought hurts, even against the others. Ben lied to me, didn't tell me the truth about my Father. And what if he did? The voice whispered in my mind. What would you have done then? I shift uncomfortably, not wanting to pursue that line of thought. The movement causes the stump to rush against the sheets, and I let out a gasp as the pain flared. 

My Hand.

The medics wanted to know what had caused the wound, such a clean cut. They told me I was lucky, that it had been cauterised, preventing additional blood loss and infection. A danger, when Leia had had only meagre medical supplies in the Falcon to treat me with. Leia. She had told me what happened to Han, though only after many evasions. I feel wave of guilt crash into me. Han, shipped of to Jabba the Hutt like so much meat because Vader, my Father, had wanted to test out the carbonating system before using it on me. I knew that something had happened between them and strangely I couldn't find any jealously in me. Not surprising, I think wryly.

The medics know what took my hand. A lightsaber. I had to tell them, and it was an easy conclusion for them to draw that it was Vader I fought, and Vader who took my hand. They were very good, not betraying there excitement around me, but I could sense it, could catch their thoughts, that I had fought a lightsaber battle with the Dark Lord of the Sith, the one who wiped out the Jedi, and survived. I'm willing to bet that by the time I get out of here, the whole fleet will know. I'm not looking forward to that.

The medics say I should get a prosthetic hand. A prosthetic. A piece of machinery clamped onto the end of my arm. Every time I think of it I flash to Vader. Machine and man, most of his flesh replaced by prosthetics. I have been going over every moment in my life, scrutinising every detail, every thought, action and word I ever had. Looking for any similarities to him, for any indication that I am his...that I'm his son.

There. I said it. Or at least thought it. I can't tell anyone. I'm afraid to. Afraid to see disgust and revulsion in Leia's eyes, afraid to loose the Alliances trust, all the friendships I have forged. Afraid that I will be summarily executed. Because they would be afraid that I would be like him. That I would be him. But that's what I'm afraid of too. 

I glance down at my stump. If I agree, surgery will begin tomorrow. If I agree...

Suddenly, I realise. I am afraid to become like him... and that puts me one step on the path to being him. Fear leads to anger, Anger leads to Hate, and Hate leads to the Dark Side. 

It is a feeling of release. You love him, I tell myself, and you love your Father, Anakin Skywalker, and the Great Jedi he was. So love him, remember him as that, as he was before he fell. I stare down at my stump. It is not the machinery that makes him what he is. I feel myself smile, the first one since Bespin as a remember one of Yoda's teachings.

'Luminous Beings are we, not these crude creatures of matter.'

What happened to my body... it didn't matter. It was my soul, my mind that was what mattered.

"I will love my Father," I murmur softly to myself, a promise, a solemn vow. "I will make Anakin Skywalker proud of me and I won't be Darth Vader, though they are the same."

'And maybe,' I whisper to myself in the silence of my mind, almost afraid to speak it allowed, 'maybe, I will redeem him.'

_


End file.
